The C.H.A.L.E.T. Conduire un Hotel Aimant L'Environment et le Tourisme Project (Running a Hotel that Respects the Environment and Tourism) was conceived and carried out during a training course "CORSO ESPACE ELLE - TECNICO ESPERTO IN ECOLOGIA E AMBIENTE" (Technical Expert in Environment and Ecology).

C.H.A.L.E.T. is a hallmark of environmental quality invented for hotel like forms of accommodation. It was created to help these structures to achieve the standard ISO 14001 and also can be used when trying to improve the quality of the service offered to tourists, as perceived by the tourists themselves.

The project used the hotel CHALET PLAN GORRET in Courmayeur as its trial area, though it has been created for any sort of accommodation and can be adapted to whatever context it is to be applied to.

The beginning of this project was the drawing up of an initial environmental analysis from which the most significant environmental impacts were extracted.

As happens with the international norm ISO 14001 concerning environmental management systems, the initial analysis showed up the restrictions and constrictions imposed by law and the procedures and general rules already applied to this field. A methodical view was adopted in researching legal constrictions which evidenced not only implications resulting from environmental laws (D.Lgs 22/97 and following decrees) but also those imposed by regulations governing fire hazards, hygiene and anything else concerning accommodation structures in the Aosta Valley.

All the possible interactions between the hotel and its activities with the surrounding environment were catalogued, according to the type of environmental impact (air, water, energy, waste, noise, etc.) and the actual physical place in which they were created (kitchen, bedrooms, communal rooms, lavatories, boiler room, etc.); points, according to the seriousness of their impact, were given to each one, according to the area in which they were.

High and low are obviously relative concepts. If we think of the environmental impact of a medium sized hotel, its is probably much lower than that of a similarly sized textile industry, but if the hotel is in a protected area (Park) this impact cannot be ignored.

Further and more detailed investigation was carried out, identifying for every "zone" in the hotel and for every possible environmental impact, the specific problems and the relative physical, organisational and management remedy that could be undertaken. The interventions that resulted from this process, chosen by selecting those with the most potential, were then used to draw up an ecological accounting system.